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Feedback about the MindMate Champions programme
About Us
Healthwatch Leeds is here to help local people get the best out of their
health and care services by bringing their voice to those who plan and
deliver services in Leeds.
YouthWatch Leeds is a group of volunteers aged 14-25 that work with
Healthwatch Leeds to make sure children and young people’s views of health
and social care services are listened to.
2
Contents
3-4 Summary
6 Why we did it / What we did
7-17 What we found
17-18 Our recommendations
19 Next steps / Thank you
20 References
21-29 Appendices
3
Summary
Introduction
In 2017, YouthWatch was asked to get involved in scrutinising the Future in
Mind: Leeds plan1, a plan for the city explaining how people will work
together to improve children and young people’s emotional and mental
health). YouthWatch volunteers decided they wanted to go and talk to
children, young people and staff in schools about their experience of
MindMate Champions, a social, emotional and mental health programme for
schools, SILCs (Specialist Inclusive Learning Centres) and Children’s Centres.
From an initial survey sent out to staff in all Leeds schools in May 2018 we
got 43 responses about their progress with the MindMate Champions
programme. During September and October 2018, we visited three secondary
schools and ten primary schools, where we carried out interviews with key
staff about their experience of the programme as well as speaking to
students. Between August and November 2018, we also spoke to a total of
655 children and young people about their awareness and views of the
MindMate Champions programme and the MindMate website.
This project was coproduced with YouthWatch volunteers who have been
involved in all aspects of the work from the initial planning, designing of the
questionnaires, carrying out the interviews, analysing the data and
presenting the findings.
Accompanying this report, there is also a one page young people friendly
infographic (produced by Natasha, one of our YouthWatch volunteers) and an
interactive map of individual school case studies.
Key Findings
• 233 (36%) children and young people we spoke to said they’d heard of
MindMate, mainly through school. Awareness at summer festivals and in
schools that weren’t participating in the MindMate Champions
programme was lower with only 20% saying they’d heard of MindMate.
• 352 (54%) children and young people we spoke to, when asked what
they thought MindMate was about, gave a relevant answer, even if it
was just a guess.
• The majority of staff and students at primary school level gave very
good feedback about the MindMate lessons, saying they were
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interesting, engaging and well structured.
• Feedback at secondary level and from teachers outside of mainstream
settings was more mixed, with some students and teachers saying the
lessons and resources could be more engaging and easily adaptable.
• 399 (61%) children and young people, when we explained what
MindMate does, said they thought it would make a difference.
• Eight out of the ten schools we spoke to who were signed up to
MindMate Champions, said they could see a difference in their school
and students from delivering the MindMate Champions programme. The
remaining two said it was too early to tell, as they’d just started the
process. The main difference mentioned by most schools was that
children and young people were more openly and confidently talking
about mental health.
Key recommendations
• Continue to promote the MindMate brand and its different services
amongst young people. Consider using schools to help do this with the
MindMate Champions programme.
• Look at how the MindMate lessons and resources can be made more
appropriate for children and young people with special educational
needs.
• Consider creating a resource bank under each MindMate lessons theme
including booklists, to make it easier for schools to adapt resources to
suit the needs of their students.
• Ensure that MindMate lessons are regularly reviewed and kept current and
ensure that the views of staff and students are incorporated into this
process.
• Ensure that schools are clear about the support available from the
MindMate Consultants to help them go through the MindMate Champion
process.
• Consider using and adapting our interactive case studies map to
encourage more schools to take part in the MindMate journey.
5
Background
In 2017, YouthWatch was asked by Common
Room to get involved in a piece of work to
scrutinize the Future in Mind: Leeds plan1, a
plan for the city explaining how people will
work together to improve children and young
people’s emotional and mental health. The
first part of this project was a filmed
‘Takeover interview’2 by YouthWatch
volunteers with the Future in Mind: Leeds
board in November 2017.
Following this, YouthWatch decided it wanted to look at one of the priorities
in the plan in more detail. They chose priority 4:
Helping young people in schools and other settings to build skills
and resilience so they can help themselves stay mentally healthy.
One of the things that has been put in place to address this priority is a
programme called MindMate Champions, commissioned by NHS Leeds Clinical
Commissioning Group (CCG) and delivered by the Health and Wellbeing
Service. It’s an evidence-based self-evaluation, action planning and
recognition programme for schools, SILCs and Children’s Centres. It includes
MindMate lessons, a curriculum that schools can use with children and young
people from year 1 to year 11 to teach them about social, emotional and
mental wellbeing. Schools and other settings can register their school, and
work to become MindMate Friendly and go on to become a MindMate
Champion if they wish. Support is available from MindMate consultants who
each have a caseload of schools who have registered on the programme.
Process for settings to become a MindMate Champion
The MindMate Champions programme is complemented by the MindMate
website (mindmate.org.uk), also commissioned by NHS Leeds CCG. The
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website is for young people, parents and professionals in Leeds and contains
lots of useful information, advice, and support relating to emotional and
mental wellbeing as well as services available and how to access them.
Why we did it
Young people from the Future in
Mind: Leeds involvement panel (co-
ordinated by Common Room) who
were involved in producing the young
people friendly ‘quick guide’ of the
Future in Mind: Leeds plan3 had been
asking questions like ‘How will we
know the plan is working?’ and ‘How
can we check what impact the plan is
having?’
They had expressed the need for young people
themselves to play a part in scrutinising the
implementation of the strategy. Common
Room approached YouthWatch to see if our
young volunteers would like to help with a
project to hold the Future in Mind: Leeds
Board to account, and we jumped at the
chance! YouthWatch were particularly
interested in this work as some of the
recommendations from our two reports4 on
children and young people’s mental health
services in 2015 and 2017 had directly
influenced the priorities in the plan.
What we did
We sent out a brief survey to all Leeds schools in May 2018 to get an
overview of which schools were signed up to the MindMate Champions
programmes and would be willing to share their experiences with us. 43
schools responded (29 primary and 14 secondary) and gave us some brief
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feedback about their progress with the scheme, and how they were finding
the MindMate lessons.
During September and October 2018, we visited
three secondary schools and ten primary schools.
With ten of the schools who were currently doing
the MindMate Champions programme, we carried
out interviews with key staff about their
experience of the MindMate Champions
programme. You can read the case studies
produced from these interviews in our separate
report on our interactive map. During visits to all
the schools, we also did a quick questionnaire
with a total of 380 young people to find out
about their awareness of and views about
MindMate lessons and the MindMate website. We
carried out this questionnaire with an additional
275 children and young people during summer events in August 2018 such as
Breeze on tour, talking to 655 children and young people in total.
This project has been carried out with YouthWatch volunteers from start to
finish. They have been involved in all aspects of the work from the initial
planning, designing of the questionnaires, carrying out the interviews,
analysing the data and presenting the findings.
Monitoring data of where we did the survey and the year groups of children
and young people taking part can be found in Appendix 1.
See Appendices 2 and 3 for details of the questions we asked staff and
students.
What we found
The terms ‘MindMate Friendly’ and MindMate Champion’
We asked schools about what they understood by these terms and the
responses showed there wasn’t a lot of clarity, particularly around what it
means to be a MindMate Champion. People thought that it meant either that
MindMate had become embedded in the school, the name of the
accreditation, or that a school was championing MindMate by encouraging
other schools to get involved. Although all of these maybe true for either
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MindMate Friendly or Champion status, only one school knew that becoming
a Champion was about choosing a particular area of social, emotional and
mental health (SEMH) to focus on, developing an intervention and measuring
the impact.
Motivation to become MindMate Friendly
We asked the ten schools who had signed up to MindMate Champions what
motivated them to go through the process of becoming MindMate friendly. By
far the biggest motivating factor was the children and young people, their
wellbeing, and how this was closely linked to how well they learnt.
“If our children could confidently explain or feel that they were safe
then that would be a major motivator, regardless of whether it said
we were MindMate friendly somewhere.”
Only one school said that the ‘stamp’ was important to them. Two schools
said the fact that it was recognised and that it was “NHS endorsed” helped
to give authority and show governors and senior leaders that work around
emotional wellbeing was important.
Awareness of MindMate amongst young people
Overall, 233 (36%) of the young people we spoke to said they they’d heard of
MindMate. As we were predominantly talking to young people in schools that
Have you heard of MindMate? Have you heard of MindMate? (summer events and non MindMate schools)
9
were working towards or had achieved MindMate Friendly status, this figure
does not necessarily reflect the population of children and young people in
Leeds as a whole. The second pie chart which only shows responses from
children and young people at summer events or in schools not actively
working towards becoming MindMate friendly gives a more accurate
representation, with 88 (20%) saying they had heard of MindMate.
Where did you hear about MindMate?
Of the 118 children and young people who had heard of MindMate, the
majority had heard about it through school (42%). 13 (11%) had heard about it
from an NHS service such as the doctor or hospital and 13 (11%) via friends or
family.
What do YOU think the purpose of MindMate is
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What do you think the purpose of MindMate is?
We asked children and young people what they thought the purpose of
MindMate was. Even if they hadn’t heard of it, we asked them to have a
guess. The majority of responses were relevant to what the different
MindMate services actually offer, the one anomaly being that 54 (8%) thought
it was something to do with having or making friends.
• 238 (36%) of children and young people said they thought MindMate
was something to do with emotional or mental health in its
broadest sense (including talking about feelings, thoughts and
relationships and helping people with this).
• 164 (25%) said that they didn’t know what MindMate was
• 83 (13%) thought it was about helping people or being kind
• 54 (8%) thought it was about having or making friends
• 18 (3%) said it was having someone to talk to (including
counsellors or mental health workers)
• 8 (1%) thought it was about improving confidence and self-
esteem
• 5 (1%) said it was a website
• The remaining 77 (12%) thought it was something else
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Feedback about MindMate lessons
Feedback from primary school staff about the MindMate lessons was generally
very positive. Staff said they liked the breakdown of content into themes,
that lessons were easy to use, and that children seemed to like them. This in
turn, they said, gave staff confidence in delivering the materials.
“Well differentiated for children across
the school – they’ve obviously been
tested and vetted to be appropriate for
each year group. if queried by parents,
MindMate gives teachers confidence that
what they are teaching is appropriate.”
(primary)
“Our staff are not experts in mental
health so heavily rely on the MindMate
resources.” (primary)
“I ran a parents’ session and the
feedback there was also very positive.”
(primary)
One person praised how useful the MindMate branding was:
“Programme has wonderful branding has really taken it to another
level in a really positive way and making it universal helps to develop
empathy in children about their peers.” (primary)
Although lessons were generally very well received by staff and pupils, some
staff mentioned that they could be a bit ‘boring’, ‘repetitive’ and
‘disengaging’ for children, and that they had to adapt the lessons to make
them more appealing.
“More ICT savvy staff have updated with more relevant celebs and
events.” (primary)
“Videos used aren’t very engaging and sometimes hard to understand.
If the lessons are taken off the shelf and followed prescriptively there
is a risk that the children won’t engage in it if the teachers aren’t.
That's why it's important to put your own spin on it.” (primary)
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The majority of primary school children we spoke to said they liked
the lessons or thought they were useful.
Feedback from staff at secondary level was more mixed:
“Work well for Lower School, but upper school have not engaged as
well as we would hope. They found some of it "boring" as they already
knew the content so there was no challenge to their thinking.”
(secondary)
In particular, from settings which are working with children with additional
needs:
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“I teach PSHE to KS3 children who are not engaging in mainstream
school. Some of the resources are not very engaging for them, and
they find some of the videos boring.” (secondary)
“Older year group lessons were too complex to adapt for our students.
And younger age group lessons, which would have provided useful
material for some of our older students didn't really work as they
seemed patronising for older students. Lessons don’t cater for
students with special needs and take a lot of work and time to
adapt.” (secondary provision - special educational needs)
Although most secondary school students we spoke to acknowledged that
they learnt something from the lessons, there was a mix of views about how
engaging they were. Some students said the lessons were ‘interesting’,
whilst others said they were ‘a bit cheesy’, ‘boring’ or ‘went on a bit’.
“Learnt about problems like stress and anxiety - thought it was
interesting, felt like I learnt something.”
“Very repetitive. All we do is fill in little sheets and watch videos.”
How could the MindMate lessons be improved?
Some staff suggested that there could be some resources introduced for
reception and that lessons could be simplified for year 1, as they tend to
prefer more visual resources.
“Something for reception would be good Just something basic what it
means to be you… and a basic introduction to your feelings”
Another suggested more age appropriate materials, videos and practical
tasks for older students in key stage 4. Some external resources used by
teachers to adapt the MindMate lessons were also mentioned.
“We use a lot of videos from Go Noodle instead which work well to
energise the children - they have a lot of song and dance.” (primary)
“I’ve found some good resources and videos on ‘Childnet, crossing the
line’ around self-esteem which I use in some of the lessons.”
(secondary)
Two primary school staff mentioned that the MindMate assemblies could be
made more engaging.
15
“Found key stage one assembly more difficult to deliver. Whereas key
stage two really engaged and followed the ground rules, I found it
difficult to talk about complex feelings to key stage one who have
limited emotional vocabulary.” (primary)
Does MindMate make a difference?
399 (61%) children and young people said they thought MindMate as a whole
(MindMate Champions programme and the website) made a difference. The
main reasons given for this were that they felt MindMate helped people by
providing support, allowing them to talk about their feelings, giving advice
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and information and ultimately helping people to feel better. You can read
more about the difference young people think MindMate makes in the
individual school case studies.
Eight out of the ten schools we spoke to
who were signed up to MindMate
Champions, said they could see a
difference in their school and students
from delivering MindMate. The remaining
two said it was too early to tell, as they’d
just started the process. The main
difference mentioned by most schools was
that children and young people were more
openly and confidently talking about
mental health.
“One of our children’s parents had some mental health issues and we
were able to use MindMate strategies to help her cope and give her
mum more confidence too.”
“Children talk about mental health and ask questions more
voluntarily, particularly boys.”
Suggestions for improving the MindMate Champions Programme
We asked staff how they thought the programme as a whole could be
improved. Several schools mentioned that they would benefit from more
support with progressing through the programme, including advice about
how to become a Champion, and some clear outlines of good practice. They
mentioned that although the conference and twilight training and
networking sessions currently on offer were useful, they didn’t want more
meetings and would prefer a direct contact.
“Signed up, been to conference and then just got on with it. Would be
good to have someone who oversees / is a point of contact to help and
share good practice. For example, if something isn't working, someone
who can link you with another school where they've done it
differently.”
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One person highlighted the need for the curriculum to be reviewed and kept
up to date. This was backed up by another person mentioning that some of
the links on the PowerPoints weren’t working properly and should be
checked and updated.
“It needs to be adapted and evolve over time, as issues children are
facing and the age they face them at may change. Need to make sure
it’s still appropriate and up to date.”
One primary school that plans nurture groups (small groups that provide
nurturing experiences for children to help develop positive relationships with
teachers and peers) around stories, suggested having a list of picture books
that tie in with the MindMate themes which could be used to invite
discussion. A secondary school that works with students with special
educational needs also suggested creating a bank of resources under each
theme.
“Because we have to adapt the lessons, it would be much easier for us
if each theme had a bank of resources under it taken out of the slides
(with rough age guides) that we could pick and choose to suit how we
deliver our lessons. This would save us a huge amount of time.”
One secondary school said it would be helpful for MindMate to create a
standard lesson evaluation form for lessons that could be used across
different schools.
Would you be willing to help promote MindMate Champions to other
schools?
All the schools featured in our case studies said they were willing to help
promote the MindMate Champions programme to other schools. The
Lighthouse school made the offer of some of it’s year 9 and 10 students
helping to promote the programme by talking about how far they’d come.
Our recommendations
• Continue to promote the MindMate brand and its different services
amongst young people. Consider using schools to help do this with the
MindMate Champions programme.
• Look at how the MindMate lessons and resources can be made more
18
appropriate for children and young people with special educational
needs.
• Consider creating a resource bank under each MindMate lessons theme
including booklists, to make it easier for schools to adapt resources to
suit the needs of their students.
• Ensure that MindMate lessons are regularly reviewed and kept current and
ensure that the views of staff and students are incorporated into this
process.
• Ensure that schools are clear about the support available from the
MindMate Consultants to help them go through the MindMate Champion
process.
• Consider using and adapting our interactive case studies map to
encourage more schools to take part in the MindMate journey.
Service Provider and Commissioner Responses
“We are grateful to YouthWatch, Healthwatch and Common Room for
compiling the report and collecting the views of school staff and students
regarding MindMate Champions and MindMate Lessons. We will be taking
your recommendations on board and endeavour to implement them to
ensure that the programme and resource reflect the needs of both schools
and the pupils of Leeds.”
Sarah Wilson, Health and Wellbeing Service
“NHS Leeds CCG is very pleased to see the MindMate Champions programme
and MindMate Lessons being welcomed and found to be useful by schools, as
it is a key priority of the SEMH Future in Mind Leeds plan to support the
CYP of Leeds to learn about their mental health. We know the majority of
schools in Leeds are engaged with the programme and are pleased to see it
is creating open discussions around mental health as well as providing
opportunities to personalise resources for their pupils. We welcome
Healthwatch’s recommendations and will respond to them by inputting into
the Health and Wellbeing Service’s action plan.”
Joe Krasinski, NHS Leeds CCG
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Next Steps
The report will be shared with Leeds CCG, the Health and Wellbeing Service
and all the schools we visited. The report will also be presented at the
Future in Mind: Leeds Programme Board.
We will agree with the Health and Wellbeing Service and NHS Leeds CCG the
next steps to be taken in response to our recommendations and work with
them to ensure any agreed actions are followed through and
implemented. We will undertake any follow up work required to ensure
there are real changes made to the service so that it is a good experience
for everyone.
The report will also be published on the Healthwatch Leeds website.
Thank you
This report has been written by Harriet Wright, Community Project Worker
at Healthwatch Leeds.
Thank you to all the YouthWatch volunteers and MindMate Ambassadors
who helped us carry out this project, we couldn’t have done it without you!
Imogen, Elizabeth, Natasha, Emma, Charlotte, Rachael, Freyja,
Irsa, Georgina, Gemma, Louis, Olivia, Anna, Liv, Abigail, Maria,
Shanjida, Hannah, Harraj, Simran, Alex, Fatima, Bisma, Marya,
Tanisha, Ghazal, Simon, Flo, Andrei.
A special thank you to Natasha who produced the young people friendly
infographic single-handedly, and to Emma, who helped analyse the data.
Also, thanks to Liz Neill from Common Room for helping make this work
possible and to Joe Krasinski from NHS Leeds CCG for coming to talk to a
YouthWatch meeting about the MindMate Champions programme.
Lastly, thanks to all the schools who completed our survey, and especially to
the following schools for being so welcoming and arranging for us to talk to
their staff and students.
Armley Primary, Beeston Primary, Bramley Primary, Bruntcliffe
Academy, Colton Primary, Farnley Academy, The Lighthouse
School, Meadowfield Primary, Park Spring Primary, Robin Hood
Primary, Templenewsam Halton Primary, Westerton Primary,
Whitkirk Primary.
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References
1 Future in Mind: Leeds Strategy 2016-2020
https://www.leedsccg.nhs.uk/content/uploads/2018/05/Future-in-Mind-
Leeds-Strategy-FULL-VERSION.pdf
2 Future in Mind: Leeds Takeover film https://youtu.be/_9K11d_QlBY
3 Future in Mind Leeds: A Quick Guide https://www.mindmate.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2018/04/FiM-Quick-Guide.pdf
4 YouthWatch reports ‘Future in Mind: Leeds’ (2017) and ‘Children and young
people’s mental health services in Leeds’ (2015) can be found here:
http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/youthwatch-leeds-reports-
recommendations
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Appendix 1 – Monitoring data
Where young people’s survey was completed
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Which year group are you in?
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Appendix 2 – School staff Interview questions
24
25
26
27
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Appendix 3 – Young people’s survey questions
29